1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of payment card activation technologies and, more particularly, to using speaker identification and verification speech processing technologies to activate a payment card.
2. Description of the Related Art
When a customer is accepted for a credit card, a contract is formed between the customer and the credit provider, where the customer contractually agrees to reimburse the credit provider for purchased goods. Similarly, a vendor accepting a credit card agrees to immediately provide goods to credit card wielding customers in accordance with a contractual obligation of the credit provider to reimburse the vendor. This system is advantageous to all involved parties, yet is subject to harmful insecurities. A principle insecurity occurs when a fraudulent credit card transaction is conducted, where a card wielder is not the customer authorized to use the card. Fraudulent transactions typically directly and financially harm the credit provider, who still has to pay the vendor for fraudulently obtained goods, but who is not reimbursed by the customer. Vendors and card customers are indirectly harmed in the form of escalated credit provider fees, which the credit provider needs to charge to compensate themselves for moneys lost during fraudulent transactions. Moreover, vendors and card holders involved in fraudulent transactions are often harmed by compensation delays, a period of credit unavailability, obligatory administrative paperwork detailing specifics of the fraudulent transactions, and other frustrations.
To minimize a possibility of fraudulent transactions, many security measures are implemented to minimize fraud. One such security measure is shipping new credit cards in a deactivated state. When a customer receives the card, it is fully disabled and is only enabled once a phone number is called to activate the card. Disablement is external to the payment card meaning that a card provider server disables the card so that any attempted transactions involving the disabled card are denied by the server. Currently, upon activation, personal information is required to establish the identity of the activating person. Conventionally used personal information can often be obtained through web searches or other information gathering techniques. Unauthorized individuals who have acquired a deactivated card can often fraudulently activate it using discoverable personal information, further, once activated a card can be stolen by a non-authorized user and utilized until the theft was detected. Another authentication or security technique is needed to prevent unauthorized users access to credit cards, which would minimize fraudulent transactions.